


R U Shy?

by debwalsh



Category: Ant-Man (Movies), Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Modern: No Powers, M/M, Mutual Pining, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Valentine's Day Fluff, twink steve rogers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-14
Updated: 2019-02-14
Packaged: 2019-10-28 10:18:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17785532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/debwalsh/pseuds/debwalsh
Summary: Valentine’s Prompt:  Every year we’re alone on V-Day so this year we’re going stag together to Nat’s party (where we’ll realize we’re really a couple already.And when that not-couple is Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes, well ...And please don’t forget i’m participating as a creator in the Fandom Trumps Hate auction -https://fandomtrumpshate.dreamwidth.org/.





	R U Shy?

**Author's Note:**

> Another prompt written for my Patreon patrons. This was fun to write - completely different boys than my other stories, but still quintessentially Steve and Bucky.
> 
> And I seriously <3 Scott Lang in this!

“Ugh.”   
  
“Wow, that’s articulate.”   
  
“Well, fuck you very much. Look at me.”   
  
“I am lookin’ at ya, punk.  You’re practically naked and we’re due at the party in less than an hour.  What’s wrong?”   
  
“I don’t have anything to wear.”   
  
“Stevie, y’got a closet full of clothes and you look great in everything.  Pal, I dunno what you’re complainin’ about.”   
  
“Not true. I don’t wanna just look great - I wanna look fuckable.”   
  
“Fuckable?”   
  
“Yeah.  Aren’t you tired of bein’ alone on Valentine’s?  I wanna bring somebody home and ride ‘em til they can’t fuckin’ walk anymore.”   
  
“Well.  Um. That’s a very specific goal.  Y’gonna put a sock on the door so I know not to come in?”   
  
“Nah.  Just a jock strap,” he answered with a cheeky grin, snapping the elastic band on his own jock thong.  “Less ambiguous.”   
  
Bucky snorted. “Geeze, Steve, you always get weird when you haven’t gotten laid for a while.”   
  
Steve spun around with his fists planted on his hips, just above the waistband of his all too distracting, thoroughly packed thong.  For a little guy, Steve was definitely cut, with beautifully defined muscles, a perfectly proportioned Adonis belt, and deliciously smooth skin.  With his messy blond hair, dangerously blue eyes, and frustration-bitten lips, he was a walking wet dream. Bucky couldn’t figure out how Steve could possibly be single.  Everything about him was perfect.   
  
“It’s been more than a while, Buck.  It’s been over a month. And that last guy was terrible.  Dabbler, for fuck’s sake. I’m nobody’s first gay boy. Save me from the experimenters.  I’ve sworn off Grindr. Too many posers. Just ugh,” he exclaimed as he pushed past Bucky and hurried into his room.  Flinging open Bucky’s closet, he sighed dramatically.   
  
“And now we’re ... ?”   
  
“Shopping your closet,” Steve replied with authority.   
  
“Why?”   
  
“Well if there’s nothing fuckable in my closet, maybe I’ll get lucky here.”   
  
Bucky stared at the back of Steve’s head and blinked a couple of times.  “Get lucky?”   
  
“Yeah.  You’ve got style, and some of your stuff is really nice.”   
  
“Steve, I’m six inches taller than you.  And my stuff is fabulous.”   
  
“Remember, it’s not the size, it’s how you use it. I can work fabulous.”   
  
Yep, Bucky’s head was gonna explode.  His best friend since pre-school was standing in his bedroom wearing nothing but a jock thong with “Fight Me” written across the waistband over his delicious little butt.   
  
Huh.  And maybe that was a clue as to why Steve Rogers was single.   
  
It was also a clue as to why Bucky Barnes was single.  When you live with perfection, everything else pales by comparison.   
  
Not that he’d ever say anything to Steve.  Steve was a free spirit who loved to fuck, suck, and buck his way through the male population of New York.  The longest relationship he’d ever had was in tenth grade, with an exchange student from Egypt. The poor kid had been called home after two weeks when some political stuff went down.  Steve had just shrugged and moved on.   
  
That didn’t mean that Steve was insensitive or unkind.  For the most part, he stayed friendly with his partners, and they would occasionally hook up again when the mood struck.  In fact, several of their circle of friends had started out as one-night stands for Steve. He was gregarious and charismatic, good with people and devoted to his causes.  Which was where the “fight me” came in. Steve had finally channeled his thirst for justice to the courtroom, and worked as one of the staff attorneys for a social justice non-profit.  It suited him perfectly, and Bucky was happy to cut back on his first aid duties.   
  
As for Bucky, he loved his job as a programmer and tech blogger, both of which enabled him to work from home and maintain his own hours.  To make sure he got off his ass and out of the apartment, he volunteered at a local youth club, where he taught computer skills a couple of days a week, and pitched in to help coach a couple of the center’s teams throughout the year.  It was rewarding and fun, and distracted him from the things he couldn’t have.   
  
Which had by now rummaged through his closet, tossing selections onto his bed, and was now surveying the options.   
  
“God, this is gorgeous.  Why don’t you wear this?” Steve demanded, holding up a burgundy silk button down and a sleek black silk tie.   
  
“I do. To formal events.  I wouldn’t wanna spill anything on either of those.”   
  
“Okay.  So not Nat’s party, check.  But oh - oh, this I like,” he commented, tossing aside the shirt and tie to snag a color-blocked cotton sweater that had shrunk a little since Bucky’d got it. The colors were vibrant and complemented Steve’s fair complexion well.  “Can I?”   
  
“Yeah, sure,” Bucky agreed, mouth suddenly dry at the thought of Steve wearing his clothes.  They hadn’t shared clothes since they were eleven, right before Bucky hit his growth spurt, and Steve ... hadn’t.   
  
“Wait, I have the perfect combo after all,” Steve declared, shaking his index finger in the air as he darted out of Bucky’s room.     
  
Bucky was left in the backwash of Steve’s cologne, spicy and distinctive.  He closed his eyes for a second and just breathed it in. His eyes snapped open when Steve trotted back in, brandishing something small, black, and shiny.  The next thing Bucky knew, Steve was hopping around trying to pull a pair of black leather skinny pants up his slender legs, and up over that perfect ass. How he wasn’t gonna chafe in those with all that exposed skin, Bucky didn’t know.   
  
“Help me,” Steve commanded, waving Bucky over.  “Grab hold of the waistband and lift,” he added, and Bucky did as he was told, his brain flatlining at the sight of Steve shimmying down into the pants, the feel of Bucky’s knuckles brushing the naked skin of Steve’s hips, the heat coming off Steve’s bare chest.  He stood there with his fingers in the waistband of Steve’s leather pants, just staring when Steve started snapping his fingers, “It’s okay to let go now. I’m in them.”   
  
“Oh, oh, yeah.  Shit, are those painted on?”   
  
“They look great, don’t they?  And no panty line, huh?” he asked, doing a little spin to show off the smooth line of the pants hugging his ass so perfectly.  Then he dove at the sweater, tossed it on, and struck a pose. “You’d fuck me, wouldn’t you?”   
  
“Uh -“   
  
Then Steve tossed the wine colored silk shirt at Bucky’s face.  “Just kidding. Now, let’s dress you up. We need to get you laid tonight, too.”   
  
&&&   
  
An hour later, they arrived at Nat’s brownstone where the annual Valentine’s party was already in full swing.  She owned the whole building along with her partners Clint and Sam, and together the three of them hosted many an epic party in the airy, open plan space.  Sam was an architect, and Nat had hired him years ago to design the rehab of the brownstone. Clint had been the contractor she’d hired to do the work. The three of them had just hit it off, and it stuck.  They’d been happily ever aftering ever since.   
  
Steve and Bucky had made their way up the stairs to the main living level, and now they stood in the archway surveying the revels.  Steve was beautiful, looking fey and wild in his oversized sweater and skintight leather pants, his eyes roving behind his big glasses, his feet encased in soft cuffed ankle boots.  Next to him, Bucky looked more like a lawyer than Steve ever did. He’d let Steve talk him into wearing the silk shirt and tie after all, with black trousers and a sinfully soft silver-gray jacket.  Bucky had worried he’d be overdressed for the party, but the way heads swiveled their way, he was starting to feel a little more confident. He certainly wasn’t the only guest who’d dressed for the occasion, and as Natasha swayed her way over to them wearing a slinky black number, he felt he’d fit right in.   
  
“Hello boys.  Don’t you clean up nice.  You know where everything is.  Pay the entry fee and have a good time,” she added tilting her face so her cheek was ready to receive kisses from each of them.  She patted the cheek of them in turn, waved them on their way.   
  
Bucky and Steve made their way over to the bar and greeted Clint with air kisses.  “What’re you havin’, huh? Nat got in some of that weird liquor you like, Steve.”   
  
“Blueberry moonshine is not weird.  Especially when it’s delivered in a Cosmo.  I’ll have one of those, please.”   
  
“Glass of sangria for me,” Bucky said, nodding toward the shimmering pitcher full of red wine and cut up tropical fruit.   
  
“Lime or no lime?” Clint prompted as he whipped up Steve’s drink.   
  
“No lime.”   
  
“So, who’s single here tonight?” Steve asked, making grabby hands at the beautiful drink Clint handed over.   
  
“Lotsa people, actually.  Oh, hey, Buck. There’s a guy from the crew tonight I want you to meet.  I think you and he could be good together, y’know? He’s an electrical engineer, done some really cool work on security systems the last couple of jobs I’ve had.  Nice guy. Good lookin’. Currently single and looking to make a connection,” Clint added with a grin.   
  
“I dunno, Clint -“   
  
“Meet him.  Say hello. Drink a little, dance a little.  You never know. Steve’ll find at least a someone or two by the end of the night.  Why shouldn’t you?”   
  
“Yeah, Buck.  Why shouldn’t you?” Steve asked, although his voice sounded sort of weird when he said it.  Bucky glanced at him, brow furrowed, but he didn’t say anything.   
  
“Okay, what the hell.  Got nothing to lose, right?”   
  
“Right.  Hey, Steve, man the bar for me for a few?  I wanna introduce Buck to Scott, okay?”   
  
“What, right now?” Bucky asked, but Clint just nodded and came round the bar to snag Bucky by the elbow and lead him away.   
  
“So, um, yeah.  Guess I’m on bar duty,” Steve muttered to himself, and made himself comfortable, using the vantage to scope out the room and identify potential prey.   
  
&&&   
  
Scott was cute and funny, really smart, and actually had a decent sense of rhythm. Bucky found himself enjoying himself more than he expected, and was surprised to realize that he hadn’t looked for Steve for over an hour.  Usually, he clocked Steve’s every move. And if he knew his friend, he’d probably found someone to drag into one of the spare bedrooms, and was getting a blow job about now.   
  
“So who’s the blond, huh?” Scott asked as he took a sip from his drink, interrupting Bucky’s train of thought.   
  
“Blond?”   
  
“Yeah, the one glaring daggers at me.  I mean, man, if looks could kill, I’d be roadkill by now,” he added with a chuckle, waving his drink in the general direction of this mysterious blond -   
  
Who happened to be Steve, leaning up against the bar where Clint poured drinks, pointedly ignoring the tiny, feisty powder keg holding up the corner of his bar.   
  
“Um, that’s Steve.  My roommate. My best friend.  We’ve known each other since pre-school, actually.”   
  
“Yeah?  How long’s he been in love with you, huh?”   
  
“He’s not,” Bucky scoffed.  “No, Steve doesn’t do love. He does sex.  And pancakes the morning after, but not love.”   
  
“Yeah, if you say so, man.  But wow ... that is not the look of someone who’s disinterested.”   
  
“Maybe he thinks you’re hot.”   
  
“Nope.  Me, I get the daggers.  When you’re not looking, you get the pine.  Here, let’s try an experiment,” Scott offered, and tugged Bucky around so they both had their backs toward Steve.  Scott draped his arm around Bucky’s shoulders and drew him in close. He pulled something out of his pocket, then got out his phone.  “One of the security toys I’ve been playing with. This plugs into the phone, and the app runs it so it acts like a tiny periscope. Adjust it like so,” he narrated as he moved the virtual joystick on the screen, “and we can get a shot of what he’s doing when he thinks you can’t see him.  And enlarge ... and there. Whaddya think?”   
  
When Bucky looked at the image, he was stunned by the difference between Steve in reality and Steve on the screen.  Screen!Steve looked sad and kind of lovestruck, staring at Bucky. He looked open and vulnerable, two qualities Bucky had never seen on Steve’s face.  Not once in context of another male. When he lost his Ma, yeah, but not toward any of the dudes he’d been with.   
  
“Huh,” Bucky commented, frowning at the image.  “He’s probably looking at someone else, someone we don’t see -“   
  
“I tell people I made this for the business, which is a cool thing.  But truth is, I developed the periscope and the app for my daughter. She loves this kind of shit, y’know?”   
  
“Daughter?  Are you straight?” Bucky demanded, yet unable to pull his gaze away from the new facet of Steve.   
  
“Bi.  And divorced.  And definitely interested, but I’m kinda thinking you may not be.”   
  
“Well, I wouldn’t go that far ...”   
  
Scott indicated the camera screen with his thumb.  “Yeah? And if he was really interested?”   
  
“He’s not.  Steve doesn’t settle down.”   
  
“And you don’t settle?”  At Bucky’s silence, he grinned.  “Look. I’m interested, but I’m also interested in making friends. New place, new job, new friends.  Let’s run a little experiment. It goes the way I think, we put together a group of your friends and my Clint, and we go out for burgers and beer next Friday.  I’m wrong, you let me take you out for dinner somewhere nice, you get to pick. I win either way. You could be a winner, too. Whaddya say?”   
  
“Okay?”   
  
“Not the enthusiasm I was looking for, but what the hey.  So, I’m gonna put this on record, and then I’m gonna kiss you.  And then we’ll watch the footage and you can tell me what you see.  Okay?”   
  
Bucky nodded and repeated, “Okay,” as Scott positioned the periscope again, thumbed on the recorder, and leaned forward to press his lips against Bucky’s.   
  
And yeah.  His lips felt nice.  Soft. Plush. He obviously used a decent moisturizer, because not chapped.  Sensuous. Flirty, too, as he pressed a little closer and nipped at Bucky’s lower lip, then flicked out his tongue to tease at it.  Bucky felt himself tilting his face slightly to deepen the kiss, and Scott’s free hand came up to cradle the back of his head, draw him closer.   
  
“Mmmm.  Kinda hoping I’m wrong,” he murmured against Bucky’s lips, his own spreading into a grin.  Bucky heard the ding of a video ending, and Scott pulled back. “Let’s take a look, shall we?”   
  
&&&   
  
“Wow.  We should add the Jaws theme,” Scott chuckled as they watched the image of Steve straighten, then take a step forward, his expression a combination of hurt and thunder as he took another stumbling step forward.  Clint looked up then from where he was slicing lemons, and Steve practically jumped out of his skin, starting guiltily. Then he subsided and returned to hold up the bar, where Clint gave him a weird side eye.   
  
“Huh.”   
  
“Huh good or huh bad?’   
  
“Huh weird.  Usually Steve is prowling a party like this, hunting a hook up or three.  Threesome, foursome, he’s usually game. I’ve never seen him stay in one place like this before.  I mean, Clint’s a great guy, but he’s in a committed poly relationship. They’d welcome Steve in, but I don’t think anyone’s looking to go solo with Steve.”   
  
“So you see what I mean then, right? How often do you hook up at these parties?”   
  
“Um, never?  I’m not a hook up kind of person.  I like to date, get to know someone, grow into the physical -“   
  
“So a quickie in the bathroom is out of the question?”   
  
“Uh -“   
  
“And I’m joking again.  So that begs the question - when was the last time you made a new connection at one of these?”   
  
“Geeze, I really don’t remember.  I don’t come to these with an eye toward meeting someone.  I’m among friends, so I just come to hang out, try out Clint’s latest concoctions, have some good food, get my ass handed to me in some game Nat organizes later ... so yeah.  Not recently, that’s for sure. I mean -”   
  
“No offense taken.  This is a scientific experiment, after all. So ... why don’t you go test the hypothesis? And let me know where we’re meeting the gang for burgers and beer on Friday.”   
  
“You’re so sure.”   
  
“Yep.”   
  
“He’s my best friend.”   
  
“Pretty sure he’s more than that to you.”   
  
“I ... wow.”  Bucky glanced back at the phone in Scott’s palm and shook his head in wonder.   
  
“You’ll never know if you don’t ask.  And if you two really are best friends, it’s not gonna hurt to ask the question.  Right?”   
  
“Fuck, I hope you’re right,”   
  
Scott took hold of Bucky’s tie and pulled him close to deliver another kiss, this one with sizzle.  As they parted, he said, “Go get ‘im, tiger. And if I’m wrong, there is definitively more of that waiting for you from me.”   
  
&&&   
  
Bucky stood slowly, his attention focused on Steve, yet not looking directly at him.  He always had a sixth sense where Steve was concerned anyway. Okay, except for the hour he was distracted by Scott. But he could find him unerringly in a crowded room, with his eyes closed.  He didn’t, ‘cos that would look kind of stupid, and stupid was the last thing he wanted as he stalked across the room toward where Steve leaned against Clint’s bar.   
  
Their eyes locked, and Steve slowly straightened, his gaze steady and his expression caught somewhere between curiosity and that odd vulnerability Bucky’d never seen until Scott had shown him.   
  
Bucky focused on putting one foot in front of the other.  That and calming the staccato pounding of his heart. Calm, he needed calm.     
  
He felt Clint look up, knife poised in mid-air above the latest fruit he was cutting up.  He felt Scott’s positive grin buoying him up as the room seemed to stretch on and on and on.    
  
He heard Natasha gasp suddenly, and Sam mutter “about fucking time” somewhere to his right.   
  
He watched Steve’s lips part, his eyebrows raised inquisitively, as he breathed out Bucky’s name.   
  
And then he was standing in front of Steve, drowning in the sea of blue that stared up at him.  His hand was shaking as he lifted it to cradle Steve’s cheek, but when he felt the soft warmth of Steve’s skin against his palm, everything settled into place.   
  
“Why didn’t you tell me?” he whispered, running his thumb over the curve of Steve’s lower lip.   
  
Steve’s hands had somehow drifted to slide up under his jacket, fingers curling into the soft fabric of his shirt.  Bucky could feel the heat of Steve’s touch leaving scorch marks in his skin.   
  
“I couldn’t imagine you could ever want me,” Steve answered in a voice raw with fear and pain.  “You never said anything, either.”   
  
“Oh, you stupid beautiful boy!  I’ve never wanted anyone but you.”   
  
The smile that spread across Steve’s face was equal parts hopeful, disbelieving, and heartbreakingly happy.  “Do you mean that? Even though I -“   
  
Steve didn’t get to say another word.  Bucky kissed it away, and all the other words of protest Steve might offer.   
  
When he pulled away, he murmured against Steve’s lips, “Let’s go home and celebrate Valentine’s Day together, just the two of us.”   
  
Steve smiled into the next kiss, and then they were on their way, anticipating all the kisses to come.   
  
END

**Author's Note:**

> I have a couple more prompts I’d like to play with, but I need to get back to work on my Stucky AU Big Bang story. Make sure you’re subscribed to get notified when I post another!
> 
> And make my galentine by leaving a comment. I <3 U!


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